


The Year of Hell

by Persiflage



Series: Star Trek Fusion [1]
Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Bisexual Female Character, Episode: s04e08 Year of Hell, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, First Kiss, First Time, Inspired by Star Trek: Voyager, USS Discovery (Star Trek), USS Shenzhou (Star Trek), Vaginal Fingering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-20
Updated: 2019-05-20
Packaged: 2020-03-08 13:12:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18895306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Persiflage/pseuds/Persiflage
Summary: Discovery AU inspired by Voyager's 'Year of Hell'.





	The Year of Hell

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Radiolaria](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Radiolaria/gifts), [nomisunrider](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nomisunrider/gifts), [Acardio](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Acardio/gifts).



> I watched Voyager's two-parter 'Year of Hell' yesterday, and then this happened. It started out as a 2k flash fic written madly last night, then somehow grew and grew. IDK why or how (bloody Bitch Muse!) but here, have Milippa developing through strife and fighting the Krenim, have a total lack of Klingons, and Commander Michael Burnham never becoming a mutineer.
> 
> Oh yeah - I borrowed some dialogue and details from the Voyager eps, so credit to Brannon Braga and Joe Menosky.

“I can hear your disapproval from here, Commander,” Captain Georgiou tells Commander Michael Burnham from her seat in the Captain’s chair. 

The _USS Shenzhou_ is barely functional any more after the last year of hell fighting an alien race named the Krenim who have a functional temporal weapon ship. They had been sent to an unnamed binary star system on the very edges of Federation space in order to investigate a damaged communications relay – Starfleet had wanted to know whether the damage was accidental or deliberate. On arrival they hadn’t been able to determine one way or the other whether it was accident or design, but they had spotted something unusual in the vicinity. An M-class planet that was supposedly populated by a pre-Warp culture with a large number of thriving cities was now nothing more than empty land, and when Michael had scanned it, she’d found no sign of any living organisms. On venturing a little closer, the _Shenzhou_ had found a trail of chroniton particles leading away from the planet. Consultation with Starfleet Command had given Captain Georgiou permission to proceed – “with caution” – in order to investigate, and they had found planet after planet in similar condition.

The crew’s spent a year battling against the Krenim, who’d captured Ensign Danby Connor and Lieutenant Kamran Gant for the purpose of studying them in order to destroy the _Shenzhou_. They’ve lost several of the crew and huge sections of the ship, destroyed by the Krenim before Michael had managed to work out how to create temporal shielding to boost their regular shields. 

**Day 87**

“Happy birthday, Philippa.” Michael offers the words softly as she comes to the Captain’s side as the older woman works on trying to fix another broken piece of the _Shenzhou_.

“Happy what?” the Captain asks vaguely, her attention wholly focused on her task.

“Happy birthday,” Michael repeats. “It’s August 6.”

“Is it? I thought we were in July still. Guess I lost a few days somewhere.” 

“Well this should help.” Michael brings a hand from behind her back and holds it out. 

The Captain looks at the item resting on her palm. “Gorgeous workmanship.”

Michael feels her stomach drop a little at Philippa’s lack of interest. 

“It’s a replica of Tycho Brahe’s astronomical sextant,” she explains – wholly unnecessarily, she’s sure. Philippa Georgiou owns an antique telescope, of course she knows what an astronomical sextant is. 

The Captain glances up at her. “It beautifully made,” she says, “but I cannot accept it.”

“Why not?” demands Michael, shocked by her refusal.

“That sextant represents a couple of meals, or two pairs of boots, or a handful of hyposprays. We cannot afford to waste the energy.”

“But Captain, I made this myself months ago – before we were sent to the binary stars. I didn’t use the replicators for it.”

“Nevertheless, I can’t keep it. Recycle it and we can use it for something that will actually help save lives.”

Michael swallows hard against the lump of emotion that has just lodged itself in her throat, blinks against the prickling of tears in her eyes, and calls upon all her Vulcan training to speak in an even tone as she says, “Very well, Captain.”

“I appreciate the sentiment, Number One,” she says. “But needs must.”

“Understood, Captain.” Michael turns, walking away with a steady gait and her head held high so that she cannot betray anything of her feelings to her Captain.

**Day 133**

_Captain’s Log 1207.3 We are currently hiding the_ Shenzhou _in a class nine nebula while trying to effect repairs._

Deep purple gas is filling a corridor, and the Captain and Michael are wearing gasmasks and using wrist beacons in order to see as they proceed down the corridor.

“Come on. Don't do this to me now. Emergency forcefields are holding. How the hell did all this gas get inside?” the Captain asks Michael who’s removing a panel. 

“Looks like a malfunction in the ventilation system. Okay, I'm going to try reversing the osmotic pressure on this deck. Huh. It looks like the gas corroded the circuit relays.”

“Let's bypass.” 

“Aye Captain. We've got three minutes of air left.”

“How long can you hold your breath?” asks the Captain.

**A short time later, on the Bridge.**

“Commander Burnham found time to be treated,” Doctor Nambue says testily, “so can you.”

“How is Michael?”

“Resting in her quarters for the moment. She'll be fine, but I'm surprised she didn't asphyxiate. I told you eight minutes on that deck, not eight and a half, not nine, and certainly not twelve.”

“Would you rather have an indoor nebula?” asks the Captain. “If we didn't stop it then and there, it would’ve flooded another two decks. Detmer, engines?”

“Not yet Captain. One of the warp nacelles is still offline. The other one's a lost cause.”

“Then route all available power to the good one.”

“Aye Captain.”

“The alveoli in your lungs have been chemically burned,” Nambue points out. “I want you off your feet for the next forty-eight hours.” 

“Impossible,” the Captain says immediately. “I've got too much work to do.”

“There are other crew members on board,” Nambue says. “You're the captain. Delegate.” 

The Captain shakes her head. “Inject me with Trioxin. That should help me breathe a little easier. Keyla, stand by for the transfer.”

“Right.”

“Trioxin is used in emergency situations as a stop-gap measure. Your lungs have suffered serious damage. They need to be treated properly. Doctor's orders.”

Georgiou all but snarls at him. “Captain's orders. Trioxin. Now.”

“Aye, aye, Captain. It's your body. Who am I to judge? I'm only the Chief Medical officer. What do I know?” He prepares a hypospray, then presses it to her neck.

“Thank you. Now, where were we?”

**Day 180**

Two days after the _Shenzhou_ finally left the nebula, they ran into a micrometeoroid storm, which battered the damaged ship.

“Engines?” asks the Captain.

“I’m trying my best,” Detmer responds.

“Captain, with the deflector down those micrometeoroids are beginning to erode the hull,” Saru reports.

“Emergency power to the deflector,” orders the Captain. 

“There is none available,” Michael reports. “Permission to leave the Bridge, Captain.”

Philippa Georgiou swivels towards her. “Now, Number One?” Her tone is disbelieving.

“Yes, Captain. I wish to go down to Deflector Control myself.”

“That entire section has been designated hazard level four,” Saru observes.

“I know,” Michael says. “Mainly because of the excessive heat. But I’m from Vulcan – I believe I can withstand the heat better than anyone.”

“Very well, Michael. But be careful, please.” 

Michael nods, noting the worry in her Captain’s eyes. “I will, Captain.” She leaves the Bridge and hurries to the nearest Jeffries Tube, ignoring the turbolift as they’ve stopped using them since they require too much power.

On reaching Deflector Control she eases open the door, then jerks back at the sight of flames within the room. She frowns, then pulls off her uniform jacket and turns into a combined hood and face mask to protect both her hair and her face, then she grabs a nearby piece of metal to use as a shield. 

“Captain, there’s a fire in Deflector Control. You should advise Doctor Nambue that I’ll be coming back with some burns.”

“Michael, get back to the Bridge this minute,” snaps the Captain.

“Going in,” Michael reports, ignoring the order and bracing herself before stepping through the doorway.

Back on the Bridge, the Captain maintains a white-knuckle grip on the arms of her command chair, barely resisting the urge to get up and pace as Saru reports that the density of the micrometeoroids is increasing and Detmer notes that the nacelle pylon is buckling.

Saru gasps, and the Captain turns to him quickly. 

“Burnham has accessed manual control. She's stabilising the particle emitters. She's got it! Deflectors online!”

“Activating deflector field,” reports Detmer immediately.

The Captain’s already demanding that Michael report, but there’s no response. She orders Doctor Nambue to join her outside Deflector Control, telling him to bring a stretcher. She leaves the Bridge at a run, then drops rapidly down the Jeffries Tubes until she reaches the right deck. She reaches the Deflector Control room simultaneously with Nambue, and the two dart inside, almost immediately finding Michael – she’d nearly made it to the door before collapsing. They get her onto the stretcher, then carry her out into the corridor.

“We’ll take the turbolift,” the Captain says.

“Quicker is better,” agrees Nambue. 

A short time later, they arrive in the sickbay, and get Michael, who is still unconscious, onto a biobed. The Doctor uses a medical tricorder to scan her, before reporting, “She’s suffered third degree burns to approximately fifty percent of her body, most of it on her arms.”

“Which were left unprotected when she used her jacket to protect her face and hair,” the Captain observes.

“Yes,” Nambue agrees, beginning to work. “It’s highly likely that she’d have died had the flames got anywhere near her naturally oily hair.”

“Yes,” she agrees. She offers Nambue her assistance, but he assures her that he can manage without it, so she moves behind him to pace out of his line of sight so that she won’t disturb him.

After an unmeasured length of time she hears a soft grunt from Michael, and she quickly moves back to the biobed.

“How are you feeling, Number One?” 

She vaguely notices the Doctor giving her a curious look and supposes it’s the tenderness in her voice. She dismisses it as unimportant. 

“Lightly toasted,” Michael quips, making the Captain roll her eyes. She waits while Nambue makes his report.

“I've healed most of the scars, but without a dermal regenerator I can't repair all the damage to your skin. You've been left with scars on your arms,” he tells Michael.

She lifts her arms and looks at them, then shrugs. “I’ll consider them mementoes,” she tells him.

The Captain rolls her eyes again, then tells Michael. “You’ll be staying here for at least the next few hours. I want the Doctor to keep an eye on you.”

“Aye, Captain,” Michael agrees, sounding weary. 

The Doctor moves away, and Philippa takes a moment to brush her fingertips lightly against Michael’s shoulder on an unburned spot. The young woman frowns at her, and she says, “That was excellent thinking, Number One. To use your uniform jacket to protect your hair and face.”

Michael gives her a half smile. “Didn’t fancy turning into a Roman candle.”

The Captain shakes her head. “Quite. Get some rest, Michael.”

“Aye, Captain.”

**Later**

The Captain had eventually, but with great reluctance, ordered most of the crew to abandon ship a month ago, when it became clear that it really wasn’t practical or safe trying to maintain systems for so many people when so much of the ship is damaged. Now there are just a handful of senior staff left – and the Captain has just ordered those remaining officers to also abandon ship in order to board the ships of the Mawasi and Nihydron with whom the Captain had formed an alliance in order to finally defeat the Krenim. Connor and Gant had recently managed to transmit the coordinates of the temporal weapon ship to the _Shenzhou_. 

“There’s no point in objecting,” the Captain tells Michael, pulling herself wearily from her chair and crossing to where Michael stands in front of her science station, her hands clasped behind her back. “The only way to end this is to destroy that ship, and the only way we can do that, with no weapons left, is to ram the ship with the _Shenzhou_.”

“I am aware of your reasoning, Captain,” Michael states in her usual calm fashion. “And your reasoning is entirely logical. What is not logical is that you be the one to pilot the _Shenzhou_ into the Krenim ship. I am qualified to pilot this vessel. It would be far better for you to board one of our allies’ ships.”

The Captain shakes her head, smiling gently. “Surely you know, Michael, that the Captain goes down with her ship?”

Michael snorts. “Four hundred years ago, maybe. Not anymore. There is not one single mention in Starfleet’s regulations that says that the Captain of a Federation starship has to go down with their ship.”

They stare at each other, the last two on the Bridge – the others have already left.

“Captain.” She shakes her head slightly. “Philippa. Please. Don’t make me leave you to do this alone. I can’t bear it.”

“Oh Michael.” Philippa steps right into her personal space and cups her cheeks, then presses her forehead against Michael’s. “My Michael,” she whispers. “My Number One. My friend.” Even lower. “My love.” 

Michael can’t help gasping at those final two words, and she pulls back just enough to stare into Philippa’s eyes. “I didn’t know you felt that way,” she whispers.

“You weren’t supposed to,” Philippa whispers back. “I never intended to tell you.” She presses her lips against Michael’s, and Michael wraps her arms around her Captain’s slender body and pulls her in tight, kissing her eagerly. 

Philippa cups the back of her head with her right hand, then slides her hand down to clasp the nape of Michael’s neck, lightly scratching her fingernails over the skin at the side of her neck as she deepens the kiss. Michael feels sparks of desire jolt up and down her spine at the scratch of Philippa’s nails across her skin, and the sparks drop into her core, heating and moistening her sex. 

“Philippa.” She can’t quite bite back her moan of pleasure and she deftly slips her fingers up under the back of the Captain’s uniform jacket, dragging her thumbnail down the other woman’s spine.

“Ahhh!” gasps Philippa, shuddering in Michael’s arms. The soft sound of her Captain’s pleasure makes her grow hotter and wetter, and she desperately, so desperately, wants to push the other woman into her chair so she can lavish her with her attention, and ravish her into a state of ecstasy. 

But there isn’t time, so she pulls away, reluctantly, so reluctantly, and clasps her Captain’s shoulders, noting the flush high on her cheekbones, the rapid thrumming of the pulse in her neck, and the shorter breaths she’s taking as she tries to shake of her epic arousal.

“Michael.” 

“I’m not leaving,” Michael insists.

Philippa sighs. “Very well. We’ll do this together.”

Michael nods, and when Philippa moves over to the helm, Michael steps across to stand beside her. She rests the tips of the fingers of her right hand on the chair arm and feels thrilled when Philippa wraps her hand around Michael’s their palms at ninety degrees to each other, and their fingers curled over the backs of each other’s hands. With her right hand, Philippa taps commands on the control panel in front of her and sets the _Shenzhou_ on its collision course with the temporal weapon ship. Commander Saru reports in from Mawasi ship that all the ships in their little fleet have been disabled.

“Understood Commander. Tell our allies to take their temporal shields offline.”

“But then we’ll no longer be protected!” objects Saru, a slight edge of panic in his voice.

“Exactly,” agrees the Captain. “If that ship is destroyed all of history might be restored. And this is one year I'd like to forget. Time's up.”

As the nose of the _Shenzhou_ breaches the temporal weapon ship, Michael leans down and Philippa leans up for them to share a final kiss.

“I’ll find a way to remember this,” Michael murmurs.

“Me too,” Philippa agrees, voice and smile equally soft. They press their foreheads together, both smiling as they stare into each other’s eyes.

Aboard the Mawasi ship Commander Saru watches in a mixture of horror and admiration as the _USS Shenzhou_ completes its final mission and crashes into the core of the Krenim ship, the resulting explosion lighting up the sky around them in a burst of orange flames that quickly extinguish from the lack of oxygen in the vacuum of space.

The Krenim ship is outlined in blue light, then it vanishes too.

The next moment the _USS Shenzhou_ reappears, looking more pristine than it ever has in the last seven years. Her Captain smiles around at his Bridge crew. 

“Well then, Detmer, set a heading for Risa. The entire crew will be given shore leave, in rotation, for the next three weeks.”

“Aye Captain,” Detmer says with a grin at the Kelpien. She spins around in her seat and punches in the course.

Elsewhere in the cosmos, Captain Philippa Georgiou and Commander Michael Burnham, both formerly of the _USS Shenzhou_ , unexpectedly find themselves aboard an entirely different, much newer, and vaster ship: the _USS Discovery_. No one but themselves seems to find their presence there unexpected and when they check the Starfleet database, there is absolutely no mention of a race named the Krenim. Yet they both clearly recall the events of the ‘Year of Hell’ as Philippa had dubbed it. What is most surprising of all is that it is clearly accepted by one and all that the Captain and the Commander are in a romantic relationship together as a couple. Furthermore, their personal logs indicate they have been aboard the _Discovery_ for a little over a year.

“It’s as if the last year only happened for us and no one else,” Michael says, quite perturbed.

“I don’t want to report this to Command,” Philippa says, her fingers idly drawing shapes on Michael’s back as they lie snuggled up in bed together in their shared quarters. “But I don’t know that I want to just forget it either.”

“Isn’t there anyone within Command that you can trust to talk to?” 

“Admiral Katrina Cornwell,” Philippa says. “We were at the Academy together, and before she became an admiral, she was a therapist. I think if I could trust anyone, it’s Kat.”

Michael nods her understanding, then shivers as Philippa’s fingers drift down her back and onto her ass. She and Philippa are lying on their sides facing each other while they talk the situation through, and Michael lifts her leg, hooking it over Philippa’s left leg. To her delight her lover slips her hand between Michael’s thighs and lightly teases the entrance to her sex. Michael groans, and Philippa smirks at her, then presses the tip of her index finger inside. Michael leans her head forward and nips at Philippa’s lower lip, making the other woman groan in her turn.

“In me,” Michael whispers. “ _Please_.”

“Oh well, if you’re going to beg, my love.” 

To Michael’s relief, Philippa stops teasing and pushes her first two fingers into her sex, then sets up a steady rhythm of thrusts that build Michael’s arousal progressively higher and higher until she’s almost keening, then she flicks her thumb, tapping Michael’s clit in exactly the right spot to push her over the edge and she tightens her muscles so hard around Philippa’s fingers that she cannot move them. Michael’s keening becomes a wail of pleasure that she will shortly find it very embarrassing to recall.

“You’re so beautiful my darling, my love, my Michael,” Philippa whispers, dotting feather-light kisses across her lover’s cheeks and nose. “I’m truly blessed to have you in my life, and especially in my bed.”

“Not as blessed as I am by you,” Michael responds, rolling Philippa onto her back and reaching between their bodies to slide her hand over her lover’s mound, then pressing her middle finger into Philippa’s sex to find her wet and ready. 

She kisses Philippa, at first lightly, even tenderly, before gradually deepening the kiss as she presses her finger deeper into Philippa’s slick heat. She adds a second finger, enjoying her lover’s shiver and moan of her name as she takes the second finger, then smiling against Philippa’s mouth as she adds a third finger. She grazes her teeth lightly along Philippa’s jaw, then nibbles at her ear. Her lover groans as her muscles tighten around Michael’s fingers. The Commander smirks in anticipation as she first laps at the shell of Philippa’s ear then, quite without prior warning, bites strongly on her tragus. Philippa yelps in shock, even as she climaxes hard, her muscles clenching around Michael’s fingers so firmly that she cannot withdraw them for the moment.

“So you’ll talk to Admiral Cornwell, then?” she asks as if they hadn’t paused for orgasmic raptures in the middle of their conversation.

Philippa’s internal muscles are still fluttering violently around Michael’s fingers, her chest is heaving, her heart is racing, and her entire body is shuddering with pleasure. It takes her three attempts to even open her mouth to respond.

“Certainly, Number One.”

“Good.” Michael eases her fingers free of Philippa’s sex, noting with interest that they are soaked in her lover’s juices. Philippa clasps her wrist, then brings Michael’s hand up to her mouth and proceeds to draw each finger into her mouth, one after the other, in order to suck them clean. By the time she’s cleansed all three, Michael’s tremendously aroused again. 

Just as she’s considering remaining in this bed for the rest of the day the Padd on Michael’s nightstand begins to beep with her pre-set alarm, then it dings to indicate she has new messages awaiting her attention.

“Time for us to get up I’m afraid, my Captain.”

“I feel as if I could sleep for a week after that year of hell,” Phillipa observes.

“Only a week?” Michael teases. “I think I’d like at least two weeks in bed.”

Philippa snorts. “Yes, but you’re not talking about sleeping for two weeks, are you?”

Michael laughs softly. “You see right through me, Captain.”

Philippa shakes her head. “You’re incorrigible.”

They roll out of bed on either side, toss for who will take the first shower while the other replicates breakfast for them, then they focus on getting ready for the day ahead. Duty comes first, as it always does for Captain Georgiou and Commander Burnham.

When Admiral Katrina Cornwell arrives aboard the _Discovery_ , at the urgent request of Captain Georgiou, a couple of days later, she listens intently to the joint verbal report from her oldest friend, Philippa, and her First Officer, Michael Burnham, then looks over the results of the medical scans that Philippa had requested from Doctor Pollard the day after what Philippa and Michael had considered their first day aboard the Discovery. Scans which show the damage to Philippa’s lungs from inhaling the gas of that class nine nebula, and the burns on Michael’s body from the Deflector Control room fire. The scars have all been healed, apart from one that Michael had insisted that Doctor Pollard leave on the back of her right wrist. Doctor Pollard had also healed the damage to Philippa’s lungs once the scans had been completed.

“Well,” Katrina says at length, “either someone is playing a massive hoax on the two of you - and, to be honest, I can't think of any reason why they would want to - or everything that you say happened really did happen. And I am strongly inclined to believe you both. I've known you quite long enough, Philippa, not to doubt your sanity. And while I've never met Commander Burnham before, the fact that she is Vulcan trained and has an exemplary mental health record makes me believe that she's also telling the truth.” 

She sighs, rubbing a hand over her face. “I'll make a note in the Starfleet Command database that the Krenim are to be avoided at all costs, but other than that, I don't see that there's anything more any of us can do.” 

“I wish I knew how we ended up on an entirely different ship as well as a year in the past when we destroyed the Krenim temporal weapon ship,” Michael says, frustrated. 

“An alien with greater powers than ours?” suggests Katrina doubtfully.

Michael's brow furrows, and Philippa says soothingly, “We may have to accept that we shall never know.”

Katrina nods. “In the meantime, I have a new mission for you, and two requests for a transfer aboard the _Discovery_ from people who are not unfamiliar to you.”

“Oh?” says Philippa curiously. 

“Lieutenant jg Keyla Detmer has requested a transfer to _Discovery_. As it happens, your current helmsman, Lieutenant jg Andrea Santos is requesting an indefinite leave of absence to spend time with her mother who is terminally ill with Darnay’s Disease.”

“Oh yes, I approved her request this morning,” Philippa says. “So yes, we’d be glad to have Keyla as our new helmsman. Who’s the other person requesting a transfer?”

“Mister Saru.”

“Captain Saru wants to transfer to the _Discovery_?” Michael asks, confused.

“Indeed. He has concluded that he is not yet sufficiently experienced enough to captain a ship, and although he hasn’t made any egregious mistakes aboard the _Shenzhou_ in the year since he became her Captain, I am not about to force him to remain as Captain if he himself feels unready for the role, particularly given he wasn’t yet a First Officer aboard the ship when, by your personal timeline, Philippa, you encountered the Krenim.”

“He does realise he’ll be dropping back to my Second Officer since there’s no question of Michael not remaining as my First Officer?” 

“He does, and he expressed himself quite satisfied to resume that role under you. Since you don’t have a Second Officer, he won’t be pushing anyone else out of the post.”

Philippa nods, then looks at Michael. “What do you say, Number One? You and Mister Saru didn’t always see eye to eye, after all.”

She did not add, because it wasn’t necessary, that Michael and Saru had frequently bickered like children wanting a parent’s attention.

“I’d be glad to have him aboard if he wants to join us, Captain,” Michael says, making it a formal acceptance.

Philippa nods at her, then nods to Katrina, too. “We’ll be glad to see him, provided Starfleet Command doesn’t object.”

Katrina shakes her head quickly. “No, we’ve no objections.” She taps at her Padd for a moment, then smiles. “I’ve approved both transfers and sent orders for them to take a shuttle and get here as soon as possible, given your new mission.”

“Which is what, Kat?” asks Philippa. 

“Over the past 24 hours, Federation sensors have picked up seven red bursts spread out across more than 30,000 light-years. They appeared in perfect synchronization just long enough for us to get a reading and then, just as suddenly, disappeared. Except for one.”

“Such precise synchronization all but rules out the chaos of natural phenomena. Are they some kind of signal?” Michael asks.

“That's what we're calling it,” Katrina answers. “The signals don't seem to be moons, stars, or any other type of planetoid. The truth is, we can't detect anything about them or engage with them in any way. Every time we tried to scan, the computer went haywire.”

“Like a compass at the North Pole,” Michael suggests.

“Quite,” Katrina says dryly, a smile just tugging at the corners of her mouth. 

“Perhaps the signals are a temporal anomaly. A tear in the fabric of space-time. Black holes can also cause similar distortions.” Michael sees Philippa wince at the suggestion of a temporal anomaly, unsurprisingly, given all that they’ve just been through with the Krenim.

“Not to this degree,” Katrina says. “Six hours ago the signal stabilized long enough for us to get a fix on its position.” She taps at her Padd and a 3D image appears above the table. “This red dot here,” she taps at the image and it enlarges, “was the only one of the seven to stay around long enough for us to identify its location. These mystery signals are unlike anything we've encountered before, and the energy needed to create them is beyond anything we understand. No one knows if it’s a greeting, a declaration of malice, or something else, but we want you and the _Discovery_ to go find out just as soon as Saru and Detmer get here.” She taps at her Padd some more, then nods. “I’ve transferred all the data on the red bursts to _Discovery_ ’s computers, and Detmer and Saru will be here within the hour. I have to get going, but I shall expect regular updates from you.” She gets to her feet, and Michael and Philippa do the same. 

“It was good of you to come and see us, Admiral,” Michael says. 

Katrina smiles and clasps her shoulder briefly. “It was good to meet you, Commander.” She glances at Philippa, then adds, “I’m glad the two of you got together – you’re obviously good for Philippa.”

Michael feels herself blushing and hopes that her darker skin makes it invisible to the Admiral.

Philippa and Katrina hug, then the Admiral thumps her lightly on the shoulder. “Take care of each other out there.”

“We will,” Philippa promises.

Katrina nods at them, then lets herself out of their quarters.

“Well this could be interesting,” Philippa says, calling up the image of the red burst. 

“It’ll be interesting to have Saru and Keyla back on the Bridge,” Michael observes.

Philippa smiles. “Can I trust you and Saru to work together without squabbling like children wanting their mother’s attention?”

Michael huffs in annoyance, noting the Captain’s amused smirk. “Aye, Captain,” she says. “Besides, I have you now.”

“You have me?” Philippa repeats, eyebrows raised.

“At least twice a day,” Michael replies, grinning wickedly. She checks the chrono. “In fact, we’ve a spare half an hour now, if you don’t have anything better to do?”

“And just what do you imagine you can do with half an hour?” Philippa asks, her tone positively challenging.

“Let’s see, shall we?” Michael answers, and before Philippa can respond, she scoops her Captain off her feet, carrying her across to their bed and tossing her down into the middle of it, making Philippa laugh breathlessly. Michael crawls onto the bed and immediately cups her lover’s sex with her right hand, eliciting a gasp. Moments later she has Philippa’s uniform pants undone and her hand insinuated into her panties so she can stroke the entrance to her sex. Philippa’s hips buck up and Michael pushes her fingers deeper into her slick heat, eliciting a groan. 

Michael leans down and kisses her lover as she works her fingers hard and fast, driving her to an explosive orgasm.

“And we’ve ten minutes to spare,” Michael tells Philippa a little while later when her lover has asked her to stop because she’s growing sensitive. 

“What about you?” Philippa asks.

“You can fuck me later,” Michael says. “On the desk in your Ready Room, if you’re so inclined.”

“You know I won’t be able to stop thinking about that, now you’ve put the idea in my head,” Philippa complains.

Michael chuckles. “Perhaps that was my intention, _Captain_.”

“I’ve created a monster,” the Captain laments, and Michael falls back onto the bed, laughing until she’s breathless.

When she focuses again, Philippa’s pushing her pants down until she can slide two fingers into her sex, and Michael quickly finds her body tremoring with pleasure as her lover fingers her to two successive orgasms.

When Philippa rolls away from her, Michael can only gaze at her: her cheeks are flushed, her eyes sparkling, and her breath’s hitching slightly.

“I can feel you staring” Philippa says.

“Can’t help it,” Michael responds, “you’re gorgeous, especially when you’re in the throes of orgasm.”

“We need to get moving,” Philippa says and Michael nods. “I’m still going to fuck you on my Ready Room desk.”

“I look forward to it, Captain.”

They share a brief, passionate kiss, then check that their clothes are straight before heading out the door and up to the Bridge.


End file.
